fracas

I was Googling for Health News today, and came across this story.

BERTHA, Minn.
May 19, 2008

A Catholic priest has filed a restraining order against the parents of a severely autistic 13-year-old boy in an effort to keep him from attending the church in Bertha on Sundays.

The Rev. Daniel Walz alleges that Adam Race’s unruly behavior endangers others who attend the Church of St. Joseph.

Race’s parents have ignored the restraining order, calling it discriminatory, and Carol Race, Adam’s mother, was cited by police and is due to appear in court on Monday for violating the order.

….. Carol Race said it all started last June, when Walz and a church trustee visited the Races at their home address the behavior of Adam, who stands taller than six feet and weighs more than 225 pounds.

In an affidavit, Walz said the church “explored and offered many options for accommodations that would assist the family while protecting the safety of parishioners. The family refused those offers of accommodation.”

Carol Race said the family of seven, which has attended St. Joseph since 1996, typically sat in the cry room or in the back pew to keep avoid disrupting the services and did not hear a complaint from the parishioners until Walz showed up at their home in June.

Even after the restraining order was served, the family continued going to the church and would leave during the closing hymn to avoid contact with others, Carol Race said.

The Diocese of St. Cloud issued a statement saying the petition was filed “as a last resort out of a growing concern for the safety of parishioners and other community members due to disruptive and violent behavior on the part of that child.”

Walz said the boy’s behavior worsened over time, telling authorities that Adam has been “extremely disruptive and dangerous” since last summer.

According to Walz, Adam struck a child during mass, nearly knocks elderly parishioners over when he hastily exits the church, spits and sometimes urinates in church and fights when he is being restrained.

He also one time assaulted a girl by pulling her onto his lap and, during Easter mass, ran to the parking lot and got into two vehicles, starting them and revving the engine, Walz alleged.

There’s even more to read here.  Carol Race has an explanation for every incident, not denying they’ve taken place, but having an answer for them related to his being autistic.

Therein lies the problem.

At the time I found this article, there were 611 comments posted to it. From the comments I read (and I admit I didn not read all 611) it seems many people are willing to understand the predicament the Church is in. Others though, use the situation to blast the Catholic Church. Apparently on at least one occasion, the family was intercepted prior to violating the restraining order and therefore attended services elsewhere. Based on that occasion, and the boy not having an incident, some who comment to the story have stated that the Church is wrong.

I have a couple of points to make before I leave this for your discussion.

1.)  Attending my child’s school, is a boy with autism of  comparable level. I’ve watched him grow from a young tot, to the size of a full-grown man, large in height and weight for his age. The older children are used to his presence, but when there is a “situation” it often requires multiple staff members to control him and the situation and I see the potential for the younger children to feel frightened.  This is less about discrimination than it is about simple practicality.  While the children who attend school with him day to day are used to this and have faith in the staff for knowing how to handle the situations (and the fact that there are many staff members available if needed), the children at school are far better equipped to deal with the situations than very small children or elderly patrons at church.

2.)  While Carol Race suggests she heard no complaints from parishioners, I would suggest that this is normal. Most people with a complaint about another parishioner (or co-worker, etc.) would go to the individual they felt could change or correct the situation, not to the “offender”. It would be totally plausible to think that Ms. Race might not be privy to the actual complaints going on.

3.)  As far as I’ve experienced, restraining orders are not given out lightly and for insignificant reasons. I’ve tried to assist a friend who was being stalked by a former partner, only to find out that while what she was dealing with was upsetting, it didn’t qualify yet (their comment)… for a restraining order. Mr. Fracas and I took to spending great amounts of time with her so as to make sure she was safe. If the Church was granted the restraining order, there has to be facts that Ms. Race is choosing to ignore. I doubt that ignoring the severity of her son’s needs is a good thing for her son.

4.)  I am Catholic, yet not one who will blindly agree with just anything. I have in my time, told a Bishop he was wrong for his stand on a certain social issue. I agree that we are to be the example of what Jesus wanted us all to be, and that “whatever you do to the least of them…”  I don’t happen to believe that Jesus was insisting that unless every single person is allowed to sit inside the church building, then we have wronged them.  What if someone was diagnosed with SARS or Ebola, and wanted us to not “discriminate” against them for attending? I realize that is a dramatic way to make the point, but the point is that perhaps Ms. Race’s son is not able to attend Mass safely? Some of the 611 comments were from people suggesting that one doesn’t have to attend Church to experience God and for Catholics, this is both true and untrue.

Catholics attend Mass to receive Holy Communion. Believing it is the body of Jesus Christ, it is the main reason to attend Mass at a Church. Indeed, we can experience Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit outside the church building just as non-Catholics. But we can’t receive Communion outside of the Church…

… or can we? 

The Church has a duty to provide the family and the son with the means to receive Communion, for this is why Catholics attend Mass. However, the Church does provide for Communion to be brought to a person unable to attend Mass. All they have to do is be willing and it will be brought to them. Many other comments there made the very valid point that perhaps Adam Race isn’t able to fully understand where he is? Perhaps his being there is more of an “I have to be right” issue for his family as opposed to an issue of everyone else being a bad Christian?

So…

Should Race and her family consider that perhaps their child’s autism makes him a danger to others who don’t understand him, and even for those who do? After all, understanding him does not make one suddenly able to physically handle an individual who is over 6 ft and more than 200 lbs.  Should they realize that his being disabled does not automatically negate everyone else’s right to be safe and unharmed? Is it in fact, the family of this boy who are being less than Christian, when they insist that his rights should supercede everyone else’s right to safety? What of the families that feel let down because their child or their grandparent was assaulted by Adam and because the ”Church” allowed it, they have lost faith and stopped going to Mass? Don’t the Races have an equal obligation to be a good Christian to others… or does their having a son with autism excus them from that? Should they work with their church to find a way to make sure he and the whole family may continue to receive Holy Communion while also keeping everyone else safe, or is it all about Adam… and them?

Or should we just damn the Church, tell everyone else there that they must, in the name of being a good Christian, be willing to be assaulted or harmed because otherwise, they are bad people?

I do feel compassion for this family and what challenges autism has presented them with; I have some experience with dealing with difficulties like that in life. What I know though… is that expecting everyone else to accomodate absolutely everything so that you never have to face that your child really isn’t like everyone else, isn’t always the best thing for that child.

I do hope the Race family is truly listening.

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